Note 154 — Chapter XIX · BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

This is one of the temples erected by Rameses the Great, and, I believe, not added to by any of his successors. The colossi, the Osiride columns, the sphinxes (now battered out of all human semblance) were originally made in his image. The cartouches are all his, and in one of the inner chambers there is a list of his little family. All these chambers were accessible till three or four years ago, when a party of German travelers carried off some sculptured tablets of great archæological interest; after which act of spoliation the entrance was sanded up by order of Mariette Bey. See, also, with regard to the probable date of the earthquake at this place, chap. xviii, p. 321.